Coronavirus: Bush ‘may get different solution to the cities’

People living in regional and remote Australia could be offered different types of coronavirus vaccine to those given to people in cities and towns.

NT Chief Health Officer Hugh Heggie address the media on coronavirus. Picture Katrina Bridgeford.

People living in regional and remote Australia, and even some ethnic minorities, could be offered different types of coronavirus vaccine to those given to people in cities and towns, according to health officials in the Northern Territory.

While the details are not final, the federal government is believed to be developing a vaccine-agnostic rollout plan it can tailor, in conjunction with states and territories, as more information emerges about which jabs work better in different circumstances.

Speaking at a hearing this week, NT Chief Health Officer Hugh Heggie said there were particular problems with one type of vaccine — understood to be the Pfizer and BioNTech product in use in the UK — that requires extreme refrigeration.

Dr Heggie said the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee had met recently to discuss vaccine production, supply, distribution and administration in Australia.

“One of the vaccines requires minus 80 degrees Celsius refrigeration. That really is a problem, both in supplying us with the vaccine, getting it delivered intact, storing it here and delivering it, particularly if that has to be done by small aircraft,” he said.

“The commonwealth has agreed that it would probably be better for us and other parts of remote Australia to have the other vaccine that only requires normal cold-chain requirements. The distribution to vulnerable groups will take place in the second quarter of 2021 and the rest of the population in the second half of next year.”

Andrew Webster, clinical director with Danila Dilba Health Service, an Aboriginal healthcare provider, said the “big unknown” was whether Australia would approve more than one type of vaccine. If it did then places like the NT would need to weigh whether trying to distribute deep-cold-storage vaccines in the bush was realistic.

“You’re going to have to get the whole community together and line them up outside the clinic if it’s the Pfizer product,” he said.

“There’s a risk that there will be huge vaccine wastage, which would be costly but also dangerous. Probably the worst outcome possible is that someone is vaccinated and thinks they are protected but are not (because the vaccine has denatured).”

Dr Webster, who sits on a key NT health advisory committee, said authorities were also awaiting information about the efficacy of different vaccines in different minorities.

A draft protocol for the use of COVID-19 vaccines in the NT, obtained by The Australian, says vaccination sites will be approved by the chief health officer, in accordance with another document called the COVID-19 Immunisation Guide.

The Guide will specify things like dosage amounts and frequencies, methods of administration and any associated risks. Patients will need to complete a pre-injection questionnaire and be observed for at least 15 minutes afterwards.

Health practitioners administering jabs will require appropriate training and to record treatment details — including the brand name, dose and batch number of the product given — on a patient’s health record and the Australian Immunisation Register.

A federal Health Department spokeswoman said the government was “investing in a range of COVID-19 vaccine candidates to ensure that all Australians have access to a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine if they choose to do so.”

The Department was “engaging a partner or partners to co-design and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine logistics and distribution service” that would include distribution to rural, regional and remote Australia. “The distribution and logistics partner or partners will supply vaccines and associated consumables (including needles, syringes and personal protective equipment) from the point of acceptance from manufacturers to the point of vaccine administration,” she said.

“This logistics solution will include storing and transporting vaccine doses at the appropriate temperature, including vaccines with ultra-cold storage requirements.”

The spokeswoman would not say if the government could guarantee regional and remote residents would have an equivalent choice of vaccines to people living in towns.